


No One Can Rewrite The Stars

by HunterByDayWhovianByNight



Series: You’ve Got A War, But Who Are You Fighting For? [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Death, Deathfic, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, The “How Bucky Became Captain America” Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 20:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14004465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterByDayWhovianByNight/pseuds/HunterByDayWhovianByNight
Summary: “That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.” —Patti DavisThis, besides his time as the Winter Soldier, is the hardest thing Bucky has ever had to bear.





	No One Can Rewrite The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a doozy to write. I almost hate myself for writing it, but honestly, it had to be done. ESPECIALLY after I saw the Thanos and Steve scene in the trailer that was released yesterday. Title is from “Rewrite the Stars” by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. 
> 
> ~Hunter
> 
> P.S.: This art by umikochannart on Tumblr is so heart-breakingly beautiful and goes PERFECTLY with this story. Check it out! http://umikochannart.tumblr.com/post/171963020207/if-they-hurt-you-they-hurt-me-too

Thanos and his army disappear. Fighting stops and a hesitant hush falls over the battlefield. The hot Wakandan sun beats down, oppressive and burning, and the heat makes every kind of movement unbearable. Bucky feels his adrenaline wearing off; the pain in his right wrist is beginning to grow and his left shoulder is sore. Bucky runs his hand through his sweaty, grimy hair and scans the field, looking for T’Challa, Natasha, Sam, _anyone._ He got separated from them some time ago but he can’t place when. He’s still in a daze from the sun and energy. The only thing on his mind is to find Steve, find him and hold him in his arms.

Bucky drops his gun and staggers across the battlefield, looking for Steve. He’s in a disoriented state, shuffling his feet in the grass and dirt, looking around frantically for Steve. He calls out Steve’s name, hoping that Steve will call back. Bucky screams himself hoarse looking for him. He feels hot, salty tears welling up in his eyes the longer he can’t find the other man. They spill onto his cheeks, cutting lines through dust and blood. His head weighs a thousand pounds and his heart even more.

“Barnes! Come over here!”

With a sharp turn of his head, Bucky looks behind him and sees T’Challa standing about twenty yards back. Bucky sprints towards the other man, worry and fear clouding his mind.

_Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please be safe. Be safe. Safe. Safe._

“T’Challa, where is he, where is he?” Bucky cries, his vision so blurry he can barely focus on T’Challa’s face. He grips the other man’s arms tightly, trying to ground himself and stay standing. T’Challa’s face looks concerned and it only strikes more fear into Bucky’s heart.

“No, no,” Bucky says. “No, no, no, no. He can’t be.” Bucky chokes on his words, dropping to his knees on the grass.

“I am so sorry, Barnes,” T’Challa consoles him. “He took on Thanos all by himself. He died a hero.”

There’s a pregnant pause as Bucky leans down and cries into the ground. He can’t believe it. He can’t believe he lost Steve. This should be impossible.

“I want to see him,” Bucky says solemnly, barely lifting his head to say it. T’Challa helps him up and guides him over to where Sam and Natasha and a group of others are standing in the middle of a small clearing. Bucky holds onto T’Challa for support, and when they enter the clearing, all eyes look to Bucky to see his reaction.

With shaky breaths and uneasy footing, Bucky walks over to where Steve lies. Bucky falls to his knees, defeated, beside Steve’s breathless body. His lower lip is bloody and busted. The side of his head is bleeding. There’s dust and blood and grass in his hair. His skin is pallid and deathly pale. Bucky gently touches his fingers to Steve’s face, hoping that maybe, _maybe_ his skin is still warm and alive, but it isn’t. It’s cold and lifeless. Bucky lets out a cry of anguish, curling his arms around his dead friend. He wails and weeps, not caring who sees. Bucky holds Steve’s limp, dead body, pulling him close to his chest so he can hold him.

“Shuri, save him. Please, Shuri, please, save him!” Bucky whimpers, but she doesn’t respond. “Shuri, tell me that you can save him!”

Bucky looks up at the girl, but all she does is shake her head at him, defeat and pain in her eyes, and bury her face in her brother’s shoulder, hiding her crying face. Steve is truly dead. This couldn’t be. This _can’t_ be.

Bucky feels empty. He’s never felt more alone than he does right now. This is the absolute worst pain he’s ever felt in his entire life. He wasn’t there with Steve to protect him. He wasn’t there with Steve as he lay dying. He wasn’t able to hold the man in his arms and offer him company. No. Steve died alone and afraid. Steve never got to hear Bucky say he loved him.

“Oh, Steve. Oh, Steve, oh my God,” Bucky says, choking up and crying. He cries into Steve’s chest, where Steve ripped out his white star in a fit of anger and emotion. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Bucky can’t stop saying he loves Steve. He hates himself for never telling Steve in life. They could have loved and lived together, but that was nothing now. All Bucky could do was say he loved a dead body.

When they come to take Steve’s body away, Sam and Natasha have to pull Bucky off of him. Bucky fights them, wanting to hold Steve longer, but Sam puts up with the vibranium elbow to the chest as Steve is placed on a stretcher. On the plane, they can’t stop Bucky from lying beside Steve’s dead body on the stretcher. Bucky mumbles things to Steve nobody else can hear, things only for Steve. He recounts memories, stories; he tells Steve he loves him, trying to make up for all the times he didn’t when Steve was alive. Natasha watches Bucky and feels herself start to cry for the first time in so long when she sees the sight of Bucky, a man who has been through all the worst kinds of hell, clinging onto the lifeless body of his childhood friend and the man he loves like it’s his lifeline. It’s too much to bear.

“Bucky?”

Natasha gently places a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and tries to get him to look up at her. All Bucky does is cry his silent tears and cling to Steve’s suit. His eyes look hollow and dead and empty. There’s so much pain and sorrow in Bucky’s face and body that it’s overwhelming. Bucky flits his eyes to Natasha and regards her for the briefest moment before burying his face in Steve’s arm again, wrapping his arm tighter around him. Natasha removes her hand and she walks away. It’s too much to bear, seeing Bucky like this and having Steve dead.

It’s an even worse battle trying to get Bucky away from Steve’s body to prepare him for burial. Bucky screams as Sam peels his limbs from Steve’s body and restrains him. Steve is wheeled away and Bucky’s heart drops even further down into the pit of his stomach as he watches his love, his friend be torn away from him. It’s worse than finding out Steve was dead. After a few minutes, Bucky is too weak to fight back and Sam lets him go. Bucky sinks to the floor and cries for what seems like the thousandth time today. Bucky, overwhelmed and weak, sees the room spin and then finally go black.

~~~~~

“You know,” Sam starts. Bucky woke up an hour ago in a hospital bed, lights white and blinding above him, and wounds healed. Sam was there, waiting for Bucky to wake up and to talk to him. “I think Steve would want you to take up the mantle of Captain America.”

“But _Steve_ was Captain America. I was a killer. A murderer. That’s not what the world needs or even wants,” Bucky says dismissively. “I couldn’t do it.”

“I think it would help you.”

“How would it help me?”

“It would help connect you to Steve. Maybe putting on his suit and fighting will make you feel like you’re doing him right.”

There’s a pause as Bucky considers it.

“You think I could do it?”

“Pretty damn sure.”

“I just… I love Steve so much. I don’t want to hurt his legacy.”

“You’d be carrying it on. Reinventing Captain America. Only _you_ could do that,” Sam says, leaning closer to Bucky’s bed. Bucky looks into Sam’s warm, inviting eyes, finding peace in his friend.

“Maybe just once. All I want is to make Steve happy.”

“I think he’d be more than happy if you did what he couldn’t. He felt so tied to honor and duty that he couldn’t change Captain America, but you can.”

Bucky turns it over in his head, ponders it. He smiles at the thought of Steve proudly smiling down on him from heaven. He feels a warm rush go through him; in his heart, he knows it’s Steve pushing him towards Sam’s suggestion.

“I think I’ll do it.”

“That’s the kinda talk I like to hear,” Sam says with a grin. Bucky grins back, already feeling closer to Steve.

Late that night, Natasha takes Bucky to go see Steve’s body. She leads him out of his room and to the floor below, where Steve lies on the embalming table. Bucky feels tears threaten to spill out of his eyes, but he manages to maintain his composure. Bucky leans down to brush a kiss to Steve’s cold lips. Their first, last, _only_ kiss.

With a half-smile, Bucky whispers, “I’m going to make you proud, Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> me, in ya brain: kudos/comment on this fic  
> you: but why  
> me, in ya brain: you gotta
> 
> ~Hunter


End file.
